So there we were, about 4:30am all ready for a lovely sunrise over Mt Bromo when all of a sudden the dreaded mist obscured the view. Arrrgh - not again, thinking we'd have a repeat of the Borobudur sunrise we anxiously waited for it to clear whilst sipping on lovely sweet hot tea Selemat had bought us. At 5am suddenly the mist cleared and Bromo came into view and what a view! The steaming crater looked ...

... door. They had come to sort out the permits for Ijen. We were a bit on the annoyed side well a lot really that they did not think to sort these out on arrival or in the morning when they know we have been up since 2. Seeing as we were up we decided to grab some dinner so we were not starving at 1am for our night hike up Ijen. We went to the eating area only to find that it is a buffet dinner for 50000 each which is quiet a bit for dinner when you are not ...

... by Brett, a fellow tour participant from Australia. As we set off from our brief stop we were both rendered speechless as we rounded a corner and got the first sight of the inner wall of the volcanic crater that we’d just climbed to the outside lip of. Actually, we weren’t really speechless, and both said “****ing Hell” at roughly the same time, but that doesn’t sound as poetic. It was a really dramatic sight. We soon understood why the ...

... to get money out. As I got back, the bus for Bali pulled up. I handed over the money we owed him and then he ****** us over, increasing the price he'd told us yesterday and stood in the doorway saying pay it or he'll let the bus leave. Absolute ****er. So we paid and angrily got on the bus, total ripoff so so annoying. We didn't have a penny on us again.Its difficult to explain the extent of the next leg of the journey. HELL, is an appropriate word. We were on a nice air conditioned ...